Charlie Sheen says he's clean of drugs and alcohol, but high on himself.

"I am on a drug. It's called Charlie Sheen. It's not available because if you try it once, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body," the embattled "Two and a Half Men" star said in an interview with ABC News.

"I woke up and decided, you know, I've been kicked around. I've been criticized. I've been like the, 'Ah, shucks' guy with like this bitchin' rockstar life. And I'm just finally going to completely embrace it, wrap both arms around it, and love it violently. And defend it violently through violent hatred."

Sunday, February 27, 2011

A recent conference in Toronto called "When Middle East Politics Invade Campus" featured five student leaders from York University. They represented Christian, Jewish, and non-aligned student groups from York as well as Iranian Muslim students opposed to the totalitarian rule of the Mullahs. A consensus was voiced of an ugly atmosphere at York, where intimidation and even violence is a regular threat against those who speak out against the radical politics of the Marxist left and supporters of terror like Hamas, Hezbollah or the Iranian regime. The students told of their frustrating experience in dealing with York's administration which offered meaningless promises of fairness and balance, yet did absolutely nothing to curtail the hate that reeks in the air of the suburban north Toronto campus.

Another example, in a seemingly endless list, of the insincerity of York's commitment to fairness came from last May's: "9th Annual Graduate Conference in Education2010: Education & Communities." These conferences, under the auspices of York's Faculty of Education, are designed to help graduate students learn how to approach teaching. Seminars are presented by former York graduates and in many cases, the participants are themselves teachers and will be influenced by, and spread what they experience at them.

One of the seminars at York's education conference included a panel about how to discuss the Israel/Palestine issue in classrooms. The stated goal of "Difficult Knowledge: The Politics of Israel Palestine in the Classroom" as it relates to that subject was, in their words, how to "bring political debate into the classroom as it relates to artist work, creative decision making, and creative teaching methodology."

So, who did York have as the entire panel about debate and creative decision-making as it relates to Israel/Palestine?

Flanders is the best known of the trio, being the notorious grupenfuhrer of the anti-Israel hate group "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid," which singlehandedly has managed to throw Pride Toronto into disarray and virtually guarantee the end of civic funding for that event.

Jason Kunin often acts as spokesman for a small fringe group of anti-Israel Jews headed by 9-11 conspiracy theorist Diana Ralph called "Independent Jewish Voices." He's a teacher at Toronto's Vaughan Road Academy where he's known best for being removed from classroom duties for 17 days in 2007 amid allegations of his pushing "Israel is an apartheid country" propaganda to students in his high school classroom.

Kunin, the author of a little tome called "Jews are not an equity seeking group" wrote a new screed recently for The Canadian Charger, which was founded by Mohammed Elmasry. Elmasry was the former president of the discredited Canadian Islamic Congress who once announced on the Michael Coren Show that he thought all Israelis over the age of eighteen were legitimate targets for terror attacks.

Kunin's piece for Elmo's Charger, titled "Can the Egyptians come to Canada to liberate us?" is a lengthy and very weird diatribe against Stephen Harper, Israel and a few other things. To give some indication of his insight, this high school teacher's article signals, among other deficits, that a) he doesn't understand the Canadian Supreme Court ruling on Omar Khadr ("The Harper government also ignores Supreme Court rulings when they don’t suit their political interests, as it did with a 2009 ruling instructing the Harper government to seek the repatriation of Canadian citizen Omar Khadr from Guantanamo Bay") and b) he doesn't understand the difference between a Parliamentary Resolution and a Bill. ("A resolution allowing U.S. war resisters to stay in Canada has been passed twice in parliament – one in 2008, and again in 2009 – yet the Canada Border Services Agency continues to deport war resisters.")

Don't you wish you had a teacher like that to explain the complexities of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to your child in school?

Rounding out the triplets of rage was B.H. Yael, one of the original drafters of the despicable attempt by anti-Israel activists to malign the Toronto International Film Festival for its Tel Aviv spotlight in 2009.

These are the people York's Eduction Faculty believes should be guiding teachers on how to address the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

It would be one thing if they advertised the panel as an "Israeli Apartheid Week" hatefest event. That way the bias would be clear. But by trying to mask anti-Israel hate under the pretense of "how to educate students about Israel and Palestine without descending into an either/or debate," York has consented to the hijacking of classroom education about this complex Mideast conflict by bigoted partisans.

For this year, York's 2011 Graduate Students in Education Conference hasn't published details of the agenda online. Given that this year it's timed to coincide with the anti-Israel bigot-fest IAW (Idiots' Apartheid Week) in March, one can expect the worst. York's behavior in this matter is a disgrace to academic honesty and integrity.

UPDATE: Just another recent example of how York seems to have one set of loaded requirements for events supporting a fair approach to Mideast politics and another for the ones who want to see Israel's end.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

After 42 years of absolute power in Libya, the absolutely corrupt dictator Muammar Qaddafi is finally on the ropes.

Qaddafi assumed power in a military coup, and while he retained the military rank of Colonel, he immediately assumed the role of generalissimo. He behaved like a Sultan and during his first 17 years of rule, believing himself immune from any consequence from his actions, which included the sponsoring of terrorism in the Middle East and Europe.

In response to the Libyan sponsored terror bombing of a disco in Berlin aimed at off-duty US military personnel, Ronald Reagan ordered the bombing of Gaddafi's Tripoli palace. The attack killing Gaddafi's adoptive daughter and seemed to teach Libya's strongman that he should behave himself. But fuming for vengeance, years later, Qaddafi ordered another terror attack against Americans, which took place in the form of a destroyed civilian airliner over Lockerbie, Scotland.

Western leaders had wished nothing but ill-will towards Qaddafi, but the vast oil reserves under Libya's desert and the developed world's insatiable appetite for gasoline bought acceptance for a psychopath who would otherwise have been a complete pariah.

The Libyans themselves to push Quadafi to the last stages of his reign. The Libyan masses themselves were influenced by the wave of democratic revolutions sweeping the Arab world, which in turn were spurred by George W Bush's imposed democracies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Unlike the other Arab autocrats who have been swept away with popular uprisings in the last few weeks, Qaddafi has an advantage. He is a completely ruthless, vicious psychopath, with no compunction against murder.

While these would be the most revolting traits for a normal human being, the lack of moral inhibition is advantageous for a dictator whose sole objective is keeping and exercising absolute authority. Saddam Hussein was able to rule Iraq by that means until he was pushed out by US troops. Without external forces to unseat him, Joseph Stalin ruled the USSR in such a way until his death.

As revolutionary troops close in on his capital of Tripoli, the western powers that did not want to commit themselves until now are pushing for sanctions against Qaddafi. His well-armed mercenary forces and loyalists may be able to stem the popular tide against him for the moment, but this last strategic commitment is certainly the death knell for Qaddafi.

Even if he is able to resist the current onslaught by a populace yearning for freedom, his and his son's ability to defend themselves from a future uprising will be vastly diminished. Qaddafi may have a few days left, he may even be able to stretch it to weeks, even months, but very soon, the world will see the end of one of its most despicable miscreants.

Friday, February 25, 2011

The Jerusalem Post reports that talks about a Palesinian unity government involving both major factions, Hamas and Fatah have advanced. It relies on Hamas refraining from violence, which could be a deal-breaker for that bloodthirsty terror group.

Palestinian sources familiar with the details of a unity government deal being discussed by Hamas and Fatah representatives, said that the proposed government would be headed by Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and will include members from both factions and independents, Al-Hayat reported Thursday.

According to the report, the sources say that the plan has already been accepted by PA President Mahmoud Abbas and a number of Hamas leaders. The unity deal allows Hamas to continue ruling in the Gaza Strip as long as it refrains from violence.

A sources quoted by Al-Hayat said that several Hamas figures have welcomed the plan, and that one of the group's leaders in Gaza, Mahmoud a-Zahar is open to the proposal.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

(Reuters Life!) - Heated pools, massage salons and a-la-carte menus are de rigueur at luxury hotels across the world but in one exclusive Paris establishment the difference is the guests: they have four legs, and enthusiastically wagging tails.

Actuel Dogs bills itself as France's first luxury hotel for dogs, and founders Devi and Stan Burun, a dog behavior specialist and lifelong dog-lover, also offer training programs unruly hounds and dog walks in the woods.

As well as a dip in the pool, or a massage, guests including Ulysse, a bumptious yellow Labrador sporting a smart red collar, enjoy "doggy jogging," or simply relax on cushioned couches in their luxury suites.

Their tiled-floor rooms smell fresh and clean and are adorned with framed prints of dogs and equipped with televisions so dogs can watch their choice of DVDs.

The Iranian Mullah-controlled, autocratic government is feeling the heat from the wave of democratic uprisings across the Middle East. Iranian government forces have gunned down protesters in the streets of Tehran, suppressing revolt for the moment, but as the death-knolls of the Gaddafi dictatorship in Libya are proving, even a violent, ruthless government can not contain the democratic aspirations of an entire country's citizens.

Supreme Ayatollah Khamenei and Mahmood Ahmadinejad, the actual and figurative Iranian leaders, sensing that Iran's dictatorship may be the next domino to fall in democratic revolt are looking for a way of distracting their population from domestic affairs, and hope to stoke a new war between Israel and its neighbours.

Hamas, Iran's client and proxy in Gaza, under orders from Iran has launched Grad missiles at the Israeli town of Be'er Sheva. Iran hopes to provoke a conflict that will escalate into a pretext for the dictatorship to continue to exercise its stranglehold on freedom in that country.

Iran has been arming its other Mediterranean proxy, Hezbollah, with tens of thousands of missiles in preparation for an attack on Israel from the north.

Iran had planned on using its proxies to provoke a conflict with Israel to serve as a distraction from the Iranian nuclear arms program, but in fear of the pro-democracy movement sweeping the region, they have had to advance their strategy sooner than expected to protect their totalitarian rule.

For a while now, I've been making the argument that the radicals in the political spectrum who call themselves "progressive" are liars. They aren't advancing civilization, they are attempting to send it backwards, many of them are racists, and "regressive" is what they should be called.

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Best-selling, critically acclaimed British author Martin Amis has offended children's literature authors with his recent comments in an interview on BBC TV.

"People ask me if I ever thought of writing a children's book," Amis said, in a sideways excursion from a chat about John Self, the antihero of his 1984 novel Money. "I say, 'If I had a serious brain injury I might well write a children's book', but otherwise the idea of being conscious of who you're directing the story to is anathema to me, because, in my view, fiction is freedom and any restraints on that are intolerable."

"I would never write about someone that forced me to write at a lower register than what I can write," he added.

But in an angry blog response on her website, author Lucy Coats, whose books include the Greek Beasts and Heroes series and novel Hootcat Hill, called Amis's remark "arrogant twaddle" with an "implicit insult to those of us who do write children's books".

And writer Jane Stemp, whose book The Secret Songs was shortlisted for the 1998 Guardian children's fiction award, and who has cerebral palsy, said: "I have brain damage ... So Amis couldn't have insulted me harder if he'd sat down and thought about it for a year. Superglueing him to a wheelchair and piping children's fiction into his auditory canal suddenly seems like a good idea."

In response to a request from the Toronto City Council, Ontario is introducing new legislation to ban strikes and lockouts on the city's transit system.

The proposed Toronto Transit Commission Labour Disputes Resolution Act, 2011, to be introduced later today, responds to the City's request to designate the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) as an essential service. The legislation, if passed, would provide for binding arbitration by a neutral third party when collective agreements cannot be reached through bargaining. The Act, if passed, also calls for a review of the legislation after a five-year period.

Today's announcement follows consultations held between the Ministry of Labour, the City of Toronto, the TTC and all its bargaining agents.

Word has it that Lybian dictator Muammar Gaddafi has fled to Venezuela to escape the uprising in his country and be sheltered by his ideological comrade, Hugo Chavez.﻿﻿ It's more like a barter-exchange. Muammar has plenty of dictator costumes that he won't be needing much longer. Hugo's command-economy fashion-flare and proletariat bargain-hunting skills have combined to pick up a few steals from his fellow fuhrer.

The most notable achievement of the Conservative Party under Stephen Harper has been to render the federal Liberals ineffectual as an opposition party. Not that they didn't have help from the Bloc Quebecois, whose self-interested positions often forced the Liberals to vote with the Tories. And no one gave Harper more help than the Liberals themselves. That assistance was provided, for the most part, by selecting uninspiring, uncharismatic party leaders, but only slightly behind that is a series of political blunders by which they attempt to over-reach and end up with egg on their face.

They must either think Canadians are stupid, or as a party the Liberals must be as cynical as the NDP if they think they can keep pushing the "Harper is undemocratic" line. How many times do the Liberals need to get the message from opinion polls and their own fear of facing the electorate that Canadians can see through that unconvincing sales pitch?

Aside from the obvious fact that the Conservatives were democratically elected and haven't done away with a single democratic right, they have a minority government! The other parties can bring in a non-confidence motion any time they like and call a new election. Hardly the stuff dictatorships are made of.

Last year, when Harper prorogued Parliament, the Liberals thought they were on to something. An anti-prorogue group on facebook had signed up tens of thousands of members and there were even demonstrations across Canada. The Liberals thought they had Harper on the ropes.

It turned out Harper was playing rope-a-dope with them.

Anyone familiar with social media knows facebook groups are trends that have virtually no meaning in the real world. A group that was formed to convince a woman to name her baby "Megatron" got more than seven times the number of the anti-prorogue group. The demonstrations attracted a few thousand people in various cities across Canada. Which would almost be impressive until you consider that the numbers at the demonstrations were even less than the combined memberships of the Liberal party and NDP. Which means the federal opposition parties couldn't even manage to get all their own members out in the street to protest against Harper, let alone get the rest of the country worked up.

By the time it was over, Harper and the Conservatives' popularity had actually gone up further in the polls.

Now the Liberals think they smell blood about the Beverly Oda signature issue.

And as usual, the Liberals are going to screw it up.

Because rather than just making it about whether Oda had mislead a parliamentary committee, the Liberals have also decided to Heap praise on KAIROS, the anti-Israel organization that was working against Canadian business interests abroad whose denial of federal funding spurred the controversy.

Just as with their failed anti-prorogue efforts, Harper's popularity will not be harmed by the transparent attempt to capitalize on the issue.

So instead of making this about a politician's integrity, the Liberals have stupidly decided to hitch their wagon to an organization working against government policy. Whether or not people support those policies, no reasonable person would dispute Harper's statement about the responsibilities of a democratic government:

“We were elected to ensure that when we give out taxpayers’ money that that taxpayers’ money is used for purposes that will further the objectives of policy.”

Some of KAIROS' supporters have claimed that allegations about the organization's anti-Israel stance is exaggerated. KAIROS hasn't helped them by choosing one of their first opportunities to exploit the Oda controversy by publishing a retort to the government on rabble.ca.

Rabble.ca is one of the most virulently anti-Israel media sites in the Canada. Its writers routinely slander Israel as an "apartheid" country, while calling for its sanctions. It is the media supporter of an effort to support terror-organization Hamas with an effort to attempt to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. It supports 9-11 conspiracy loons and Rabble's user forums have called for violent socialist revolution in Canada.

Those are the people KAIROS turned to first for support.

The Liberals, by throwing their lot in with the most fanatical elements of the fringes of the Canadian political spectrum, have yet again shown their main interest is not principled leadership. It's a familiar face of the worst aspect of Liberal Party of Canada politics.

The Liberals are pushing a petition to get Beverly Oda to resign. Based on the petition's numbers, they haven't even convinced all the members of the Liberal Party to sign it, let alone the overwhelming majority of Canadians who have shown complete indifference to this issue.

Here is a video the Liberals produced. It's an embarrassment to them. In the background are chants of "shame" that sound like they could have been made by the cultists of Queers Against Israel Apartheid during a meeting in one of their bunkers.

The Liberals desperately need a better class of political advisers and consultants. They way they're going, they are steering Canada towards a Conservative majority in the next election.

UPDATE: A good Macleans piece that points out how the Liberals are using the KAIROS issue as a red herring that even they don't believe.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

George Soros has been taking a lot of hits from conservative commentator Glenn Beck lately. Soros used CNN's Fareed Zakaria to air his response to Beck's accusation of the currency speculating billionaire being an evil, manipulative "puppet master."

The first thing Soros says in the video is, "I would be amused if people saw the joke in it."

And the first thing I thought was how much Soros looks like The Joker!

Soros then counter-accused FOX News' Rupert Murdoch of using Orwellian mind control techniques.

Rupert Murdoch! He looks a hell of a lot like The Thing!

Is this a real life battle between a creepy, meglomaniacal bad guy versus an ugly, bombastic good guy?

Friday, February 18, 2011

The Community Advisory Panel for the Toronto Pride Committee, after months of consultations, meeting and surveys, has issued its recommendations.

On the one issue that people were really curious about, whether they would allow the anti-Israel hate group "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid" (al-QuAIA) to participate. City council and the current mayor have threatened to withhold city funding if the group that seeks to deligitimize and boycott the Jewish state is allowed to participate, and the Panel;s report throws the responsibility for that decision back to the City to determine if Toronto's anti-discrimination policy is violated by their inclusion.

Two relevant sections from the report are point 14 below:

"Pride Toronto establish a Board Advisory Committee on governance and that membership on this committee consist of at least one Board representative, but consist mainly of people from the community who have the skills and experience necessary to carry out the responsibilities specifically allocated to this committee and to ensure that Pride Toronto’s governance structure, its bylaws, and its operations reflect the best practices of not-for-profit corporations. The Board Advisory Committee will assist the Board and its membership in overseeing Pride Toronto’s compliance with the applicable municipal, provincial and federal laws; its obligations imposed by its Letters Patent and Bylaws; and with obligations under funding agreements including the reporting obligations imposed by those agreements, e.g., City of Toronto Equity Guide. Furthermore, this committee will ensure that Pride Toronto creates the policies and practices imposed by the City Of Toronto on funding recipients, including as priorities robust equity policies, conflict of interest policies, and a dispute resolution process."

"All groups applying to participate in the Parade or a march must complete an undertaking to abide by Pride Toronto’s anti-discrimination policy. Included in this undertaking will be the following phrase “The applicant will not present images or messages that promote or condone, or may promote or condone, violence, hatred, degradation or negative stereotypes of any person(s) or group(s).” Allegations that this undertaking has been or will be violated by any group, like other allegations of rule violations, will be resolved through the Pride Toronto dispute resolution process. Groups violating this undertaking or other Pride Toronto rules may be subject to sanctions, including being denied the right to participate in the current or future Parades or marches. (Appendix A)"

Since al-QuAIA very clearly promotes a message that encourages hatred towards Israeli Jews, it seems a no-brainer that they should not be allowed to participate. Pride shouldn't need to pass the buck to the City to make a determination on that. But experience shows that in some quarters, even a "no-brainer" should not be taken for granted.

After two House Republicans called it "ObamaCare," Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) asked the chairman whether these "disparaging" remarks should be allowed on the House floor.

"That is a disparaging reference to the president of the United States; it is meant as a disparaging reference to the president of the United States, and it is clearly in violation of the House rules against that," she said.

Is a Democrat admitting that Obama's health care plan is so terrible that associating him with it is 'disparaging'?

In another sign of what may spread throughout North America, the battle between the public and their elected officials who need to find ways of balancing budgets versus unions and their supporters has become ridiculous and desperate.

In order to enure that a quorum could not be reached on a vote they were going to lose, Democratic state legislators in Wisconsin fled to Illinois. The Republican-backed bill would force most unionized state workers to pay half their pension costs and 12.6% of their health care coverage. Barack Obama weighed in calling the bill "an assault on unions."

Obama's criticism led Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to retort, "We are focused on balancing our budget. It would be wise for the government and others in Washington to focus on balancing their budgets, which they are a long way off from doing."

With the public increasingly turning against public service unions, whose self-interest and hypocrisy is evident, they are likely to continue pulling more desperate stunts. It speaks volumes to the dearth of intelligence among union leaders that their belligerent actions which betray the interests of democratic institutions only increases public opposition to them.

Union-linked Ontario Coalition Against Poverty's John Clarke warned that he will attempt more outrageous actions like those in the video below. Each one costs his and the unions' cause more in public support.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

The Munk Centre is the University of Toronto's showpiece for Global Studies and frequently features brilliant speakers and fascinating presentations. But as Johnny Carson used to say when one of his jokes bombed, "they can't all be gems."

Case in point, a dual program on Tuesday evening called, "In Conversation with Brian Stewart."

In fairness to The Munk Centre, it did provide one thoughtful speaker that evening who provided pertinent facts and intelligent analysis in the person of Brigadier-General Jonathan Vance.

Stewart is a former Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) reporter who is now affiliated with the Munk Centre. There were two parts to the program. The first was billed as "Canada and Afghanistan" and was an hour of Stewart posing questions to Vance, who is Chief of Staff, Land Strategy for the Canadian Armed Forces.

Vance offered insights into the Afghanistan situation and Canada's military role that are worth noting. Aside from the obvious fact that the rights and lives of most Afghans have improved since the removal of the Taliban, it's critical to note that despite the implications by friends of the Mullah-ruled Iranian dictatorship, like the Canadian Peace Alliance's James Clark, most Afghans want NATO to be there. They don't want NATO to stay forever, but they do want them to remain until Afghanistan is secure enough to prevent a resumption of Taliban rule. The voices of Afghans who condemn NATO's presence in their country are almost always those who don't live in Afghanistan.

To illustrate that, while millions of Afghans left the country as refugees during Taliban rule, millions are now returning since the NATO intervention. That fact alone should be ample testimony to the benefit of NATO's role in Afghanistan.

The best answers are often elicited from a questioner who challenges the person being questioned. Because an idea or proposition is offered doesn't mean it should be accepted. However there was something about Stewart's questioning, having alternated between cynical and uninformed, which brought to mind the worst practices of the old CBC. Stewart made weird allegations parroted from a group of communists about "the militarization" of Hockey Night in Canada and concluded with a condescending congratulation of Vance for his "honesty," as if anything less could have been expected.

Stewart's position couldn't have been made more apparent than by his shift to the role of obsequious acolyte in the second part of the program called, "Obama Watch: Historians Review the Obama Foreign Policy Record"

One of the secrets of academia is that a PhD is no guarantee of great intelligence. Sometimes all it means is that an individual who possess one is better trained to articulate banal ideas than the average person. Historians John Milton Cooper and Robert Bothwell provided ample reminder of that. They shared the stage with the Munk Centre's Ronald Pruessen and what was supposed to be a critique of US President Obama's foreign policy instantaneously descended into Cooper bloviating about a Zionist takeover of American politics, only to be echoed by Bothwell's conspiratorial assertion that Israeli Prime Minister Netenyahu is more powerful in American politics than Obama.

Pruessen seemed embarrassed by his colleagues and while he sensibly (sanely) stayed away from that delusional line of distraction, he did not challenge it. That is understandable since it might have inspired ostracism given the the anti-Zionist zealotry often prevalent at U of T, which includes entire departments devoted to it.

While it was shocking to hear an outburst from Cooper and Bothwell that could just as easily have been a recital from a neo-Nazi website or a squawk from a Maoist nut like Norman Finkelstein, what was most surprising about the hour-long panel was that among all the many assertions, not once was a single historical fact introduced by any of the historians to substantiate them. Finkelstein routinely presents facts and data out of context, but at least he actually uses facts on occasion.

Such was not the case with the historian's panel. A panel that was ostensibly about Obama, overwhelmingly became just a group denunciation of George W Bush. Cooper and Bothwell seemed personally affronted by the popular conception that Bush's push for democracy in the middle east could in any way be responsible for the wave of pro-democracy rebellions spreading across the region. Cooper appeared to revile Bush to the extent that he could barely bring himself to say his name, almost always referring to him as "the last president," bringing to mind the way that Islamist fanatics cannot bear to say "Israel" and refer to it as "the Zionist entity."

Cooper's oft-repeated use of the term "right-wing", spitting it out as if it were a diabolical curse, implied an ideologically-inspired intellectual vacuity, as if by virtue of an idea's being from a particular part of the political spectrum, it was automatically disqualified from any validity. The best US president of the last two decades was Bill Clinton, whose success was in no small measure derived from his ability to recognize good ideas and adopt them, regardless of their source. The reason the Republicans were so frustrated by him, and their attacks against him so personal, was because it is almost impossible to attack the politics of someone who appropriates your best ideas and implements them as his own policies.

Of course, Bill Clinton possesses one of the most politically astute minds in the world, and Messieurs Cooper and Bothwell, to put it politely, do not.

It was staggering to hear the panel unanimously postulate something that should be discouraging for any supporter of Barack Obama as it is for anyone who welcomes global stability: their positive assessment of an Obama presidency leading to a weaker America. At that point, I realized I was listening to a panel of 20th century historians who have learned absolutely nothing from the history of the 20th century.

They all agreed that America, in the absence of another superpower, was too strong, and it's weakening would be a good thing for the world and the USA . What they didn't say was who they assumed would fill the power vacuum left by a debilitated United States. Unless they meant a nuclear Iran or authoritarian China, the natural assumption would be Europe.

If nothing else can be learned from the history of Europe over the last 100 years, it is that Europe is incapable of functioning for any length of time without a strong America. Cooper, who wrote a well received biography of Woodrow Wilson, the US President at the close of World War 1, seemed to have forgotten the cause of that war was European instability. It took a strong America to end that conflict, since Europe was unable to solve its own problems. History repeated itself with the American intervention needed to end World War 2. It was America's support for western Europe that prevented the Soviets from dominating that continent during the cold war. And if any further reminder was needed, though it shouldn't be, it is the resolution of the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, which threatened to turn into a regional war while Europe criticized and ineffectually dithered until an American bombing campaign ordered by President Clinton concluded that crisis.

Given their other proclivities, maybe it should not have been surprising that those obvious facts didn't factor into the assessment of the historical trio.

The Munk Centre provides a tremendous service in presenting different voices and divergent views so that students, academics, and the public can be exposed to a variety of ideas. A moderator who challenges the preposterous rather than allows his own prejudices to be reinforced would provide a good enhancement for these events.

One consolation from the historian's panel is that it conclusively proves that Linda McQuaig is full of..hot air.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Even in a week that concentrated all eyes on the magnificent courage and maturity of the people of Cairo, a report from Kabul began with what must surely be the most jaw-dropping opening paragraph of the year. Under the byline of the excellent Rod Nordland, The New York Times reported: “International and local human rights groups working in Afghanistan have shifted their focus toward condemning abuses committed by the Taliban insurgents, rather than those attributed to the American military and its allies.”

The story went on to point out that the Taliban was culpable for “more than three-fourths of all civilian casualties” and informed us that some human-rights groups are now so concerned that they are thinking of indicting the Taliban for war crimes. “The activists’ concern,” Nordland went on, “would have been unheard-of a year ago,” when all the outcry was directed at casualties inflicted by NATO contingents.

The story became more mind-boggling as it unfolded. One had to ask oneself what had taken the human-rights “community” so long.

In 2009, conservative activists exposed ACORN with this video, in which members of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now offered their help in providing tax tips on how to pimp out what they are told are underage prostitutes smuggled into the US from Central America.

The exposure of these videos got ACORN's US federal funding revoked.

And they were involved in election fraud:

ACORN operates in Canada too. According to their website, "ACORN Canada is an independent national organization in Canada, but we draw on the proud history and tradition of ACORN USA (acorn.org)."

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

With the exception of Angelo Persichilli, they really don't offer much that justifies the time, no matter how brief. Although I have to confess a rather perverse interest in reading Heather Mallick on occasion. Not because she's interesting or clever or insightful. I don't find her to be any of those things. But reading her column is like playing a game of sexual "Where's Waldo?"

No matter how inappropriate, no matter how irrelevant, she always, always, seems to find some way of sexualizing her subject. And not pleasant sex, but violent, coercive sex. It's like Mallick's devoted her life's work to proving Sigmund Freud right. And to my shame, every so often, I'll read her column to see where her psycho-sexual obsession will pop up.

It's been some time since I played that game. It became too easy, as if Waldo was standing right in the front of the picture, arms akimbo. But I decided to go try it again with Mallick's last two columns to see if she's outgrown her old habit, or perhaps found some apparently needed help.

She hasn't.

Last Friday, she wrote a predictable (for her) condemnation of British PM David Cameron's sensible observations about the failure of multiculturalism. I made it through most of the column without encountering a bizarre sexual metaphor and thought, "This could be it! Mallick, albeit late, has begun a new chapter in her life!"

No such luck. The last third of her column invokes, for reasons unknown to anyone but Heather Mallick, a non-sequitur mention of a scene from the TV show The Sopranos, where a stripper is beaten to death.

That was just one sentence in an otherwise routine column. I figured it'd be worth a look at her next Star column to see if maybe, just maybe, there was at least movement in the right direction.

Her next column was about Amy Chua's memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. Chua, who is an accomplished lawyer, academic and author, wrote about using draconian child-rearing techniques to produce highly successful children. One may agree or disagree about whether Chua's ideas are ultimately beneficial.

But Mallick, in her disdain for Chua, applies criticism through her signature, and seemingly only literary device; weird sexual projection. This time involving Chua's then-14 year old daughter:

Chua is hopeless about sex and cannot see that the photo of Sophia playing at Carnegie Hall shows a 14-year-old wearing a charcoal strapless gown, her legs fanned, her arms arched in a purely erotic pose. When a vicious piano teacher in Budapest (Elfriede Jelinek won a Nobel Prize for writing about women like this) whips Lulu’s playing fingers with a pencil and Chua backs the teacher, you wonder what Chua would have done if the teacher had fondled the child’s breasts. Tell Lulu to pull herself together and shut up?

I know who I'd like to tell to pull herself together and shut up.

Maybe that's not fair. Heather needs to express her feelings. Whether they would be more appropriately addressed to a psychiatrist than the Toronto Star's readers is another question.

Monday, February 14, 2011

An Iranian was shot dead during a banned opposition rally in Tehran, the semi-official Fars news agency reported, blaming opposition supporters for the shooting.

"One person was shot dead and several were wounded by seditionists (opposition supporters) who staged a rally in Tehran," Fars said, without giving further details.

Iranian security forces clashed with supporters of the opposition in the central city of Isfahan on Monday and arrested dozens of protesters at a banned rally backing uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia, a witness said.

"There were clashes between security forces and protesters in Isfahan and dozens of people were arrested," the witness told Reuters by telephone.

Iranian security forces fired tear gas to scatter thousands of people marching on a Tehran square. "There are thousands of people marching ... not chanting slogans ... Security forces fired tear gas to disperse them near Imam Hossein square," said the witness.

The march was a test of strength for the reformist opposition, which had not taken to the streets since Dec. 2009, when eight people were killed. But Iranian security forces are still unlikely to hesitate to use any means to stop protests.

The Looney Left went crazy a few months ago when the Globe and Mail replaced Rick Salutin's column with one from Irshad Manji.

"A blow to "progressive" (read: regressive) voices in the media" was the gist of their shrill cries. As of last Friday, Salutin has been writing for The Toronto Star. His first column for the Liberal-leaning paper was ostensibly a review of a TV series called NCIS, but Salutin being Salutin, it was filled with undertones about the evils of the United States.

One would think all those people who decried Salutin's firing from the Globe would be cheering his return with great fanfare.

But such was not the case. In the 3 days since his article was published online, it managed to draw only 3 user comments and virtually no attention.

Maybe it's because in the Globe, his column stood out. Whereas in the Star, among raving fanatics like Linda McQuaig, Haroon Siddiqui, Antonia Zerbisias, and James Travers, Salutin gets lost in the crowd. In fact, he seems relatively sane compared to his new colleagues, particularly when considering that Heather Mallick is one of them.

Radical socialists Angela Davis and Ward Churchill were the paid guests of the University of Toronto's socialist-dominated Student Union, which extracts $2 Million dollars annually from a student body who overwhelmingly have no interest in their fanatical agenda.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

From The Literary Review of Canada's review of Ken McGoogan’s How the Scots Invented Canada:

The title is deliberately provocative, to the point of being preposterous, in the same vein as its inspiration—Arthur Herman’s How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe’s Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It. It sounds as if it were conceived after one too many Lagavulins by someone who has just given the puff-chested toast of drunk Scotsmen everywhere: “Here’s tae us. Wha’s like us? Damn few an’ they’re a’ deid.”

This habit of self-congratulation has long annoyed those unfortunate enough not to have any Scots blood coursing through their veins. The backlash was perhaps best put by T.W.H. Crosland at the turn of the 20th century in his book The Unspeakable Scot: The Scotsman “is the one species of human animal that is taken by all the world to be fifty per cent cleverer and pluckier and honester than the facts warrant.”

Except, in this case, the facts support McGoogan’s contention. Of our 22 prime ministers, 13 can claim Scottish heritage; over half the 36 Fathers of Confederation were Scottish Canadians; Scots explorers such as Alexander Mackenzie and Simon Fraser crossed the continent and established settlements in the West; their countrymen such as George Simpson and Donald Smith ran the biggest companies and banks; Scots immigrants such as Sir John A. Macdonald, Tommy Douglas, George Brown and James McGill made their mark in politics, journalism and education, while others such as Alexander Graham Bell and Sandford Fleming were at the forefront of innovation and invention.

Popular and political forces in Egypt vehemently criticised statements made by Iran's supreme leader Ali Khamenei last week that described the Egyptian uprising as "Islamic" and linked it to the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

During his Friday prayer sermon, Khamenei was quoted as saying that "the riots in Tunisia and Egypt are a sign of the Islamic awakening in the world following the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran."

"After years of struggle, the Iranian people see that their voice is heard with strength in other regions in the Islamic world," Khamenei added.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul- Gheit said Khamenei should be attentive to calls for freedom in Iran rather than "distracting the Iranian people's attention by hiding behind what is happening in Egypt."

The Egyptian foreign minister said that "Iran's critical moment has not yet come, but we will for watch that moment with great anticipation and interest."

Khamenei's statements caused uproar from Egyptian demonstrators in Tahrir Square, who protested against what they saw as Iranian interference in Egyptian affairs.

"Egypt will never be another Iran. We will never be ruled by a theological dictatorship as is the case in Iran," one of the protesters told a cheering crowd.

Or at least some. On the other hand...no, not that kind of other hand.. some seem to be having fun.

The University of Toronto student paper The Varsity reports:

Josée Boileau did not expect to receive abusive tweets during her keynote at the Canadian University Press’ January national conference. As the editor-in-chief of Le Devoir was presenting on the paper’s history and adjustment to new media, a Twitter account named @le_devoir appeared, which featured a background picture of Boileau.

The account, which also referenced her long speech and deemed her remarks arrogant, sparked comments from other delegates. One attendee tweeted that Boileau was “not just tooting the Le Devoir horn [but] leaning on it with all her weight,” while another lamented “sitting through an hour-long Le Devoir hand job.”

CUP is a non-profit media co-operative, with membership from campus papers at most Canadian universities. CUP President Erin Cauchi said she heard of the tweets shortly after the speech.

“They were in poor taste and they were rude and I was horrified. I saw some people laughing about it, but I thought it was horrible.”

Cauchi said the “totally inexcusable” remarks prompted a phone call from Boileau and a response from conference heads.

“We made it clear very quickly that we do not condone that behavior as an organization.”

Cauchi admitted that Boileau spoke for twice her allocated time. “She went for a long time. […] Print journalists aren’t as used to performing.”

Amid responses that the comments were only said in jest, Mai Anh Tran-Ho, editor-in-chief of Le Délit, the francophone paper at McGill University, shot back that “saying a keynote is equivalent to a hand job or that the speaker is ugly is not positive criticism.”

With her talent for stating the obvious, Ms Tran-Ho will have a superb future as a journalist in Quebec.

Not to spoil things for you, but the Varsity report doesn't say whether the speech had a happy ending.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

CKLN, the problem-besieged Ryerson University "student" radio station that was taken over by Trotskyist activists to the dismay of many of Ryerson's student body, recently had its license revoked by the Canadian Radio Television Commission.

CKLN 88.1FM will continue broadcasting after a judge ruled they could continue operations until a federal court will decide if the station can go forward with their appeal against the CRTC.

On Jan. 28, the Canadian Radio-Televison and Communications Commission (CRTC) announced the decision to revoke the station’s licence after several instances of non-compliance with the commission’s standards for broadcasting, including failing to fill necessary paperwork and a lack of balanced representation on the station’s board of governors.

The court is not expected to rule until April at the earliest. Until then, the station will remain on the air.

OCAP uses homophobic slurs! In the first video at the 2:23 point, you can hear an OCAP thug say to Etobicoke Councillor Doug Ford: "F*cking scumbag, ya' faggot, eat sh!t and die!" This is the person to whom Ford allegedly replied "Get a job" although if he did, it is not audible in the video.

For more idiotic Stalinist tripe, you can hear chants, shouts and profanity from Ontario Coalition Against Povery (OCAP) thugs who invaded City Hall in an attempt to subvert democracy in this video:

Thursday, February 10, 2011

The Lebanese Canadian Bank SAL facilitated money laundering by an international drug- trafficking network and has ties to the terrorist organization Hezbollah, according to the U.S.

The Beirut, Lebanon-based bank, through management complicity and failure of its internal controls, has been used “extensively” by people associated with the network to move as much as $200 million a month in proceeds from illicit drug deals, according to a Treasury Department statement today. The department filed a notice proposing banning U.S. financial institutions from opening or maintaining certain accounts for the closely held bank, known as LCB.

The U.S. today designated the bank as being of “primary money laundering concern,” bringing its conduct to the attention of the financial community and limiting its ability to be used for criminal purposes, according to the Treasury Department.

The U.S. is seeking “to protect the U.S. financial system from the illicit proceeds flowing through LCB and to deprive this international narcotics trafficking and money laundering network of its preferred access point into the formal financial system,” said Stuart Levey, the Treasury Department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, at a news conference in Washington.

John Clarke's violent activist group, the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP) doesn't think they should have to be limited by normal democratic institutions. A group of them invaded Toronto's City Hall during the final stages of budget deliberations and assaulted police and attempted to assault City Councillors. As OCAP's Liisa Schofield expressed “If you want to tell us to stand in a queue and wait and speak politely, that’s bogus. We have the right to come in here. ... We’re going to refuse to allow these cuts to happen in the city.”

The new documentary Iranium is bothering the leadership of Iran. The film, which details Iran's post-revolutionary history of terrorism and their attempt to acquire nuclear weapons, has led to threats from Iran and their proxies. Canada has responded to Iranian threats intended to supress the documentary with clear statements affirming Canadian freedom of speech.

Iran's leadership, which recognizes no such right for its own citizens, has become frustrated with its failure and has resorted to an old tactic; playing the victim.

NBC news reports that Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak will resign tonight and will be succeeded by his newly appointed Vice President Omar Suleiman.

USA Today has reported that at 10:50 a.m. ET: Gen. Hassan al-Roueini, military commander for the Cairo area, tells thousands of protesters in central Tahrir Square: "All your demands will be met today."

Suleiman was the former head of Egypt's Intelligence Services and his succession would fall into a scenario described in a newly released wiki-leak of a US report about a meeting between an Israeli delegation and Egyptian leaders in 2008:

(S) In terms of atmospherics, Hacham said the Israeli delegation was "shocked" by Mubarak's aged appearance and slurred speech. Hacham was full of praise for Soliman, however, and noted that a "hot line" set up between the MOD and Egyptian General Intelligence Service is now in daily use. Hacham said he sometimes speaks to Soliman's deputy Mohammed Ibrahim several times a day. Hacham noted that the Israelis believe Soliman is likely to serve as at least an interim President if Mubarak dies or is incapacitated. (Note: We defer to Embassy Cairo for analysis of Egyptian succession scenarios, but there is no question that Israel is most comfortable with the prospect of Omar Soliman.)

York Regional Police (YRP) inspectors have wrapped up an internal investigation of their in-house rabbi, launched in response to a complaint about a "very homophobic"sermon.

The "letter of concern" was filed by Kulanu Toronto, an advocacy group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Jews, against Rabbi Mendel Kaplan, the Jewish chaplain for YRP. In his sermon, given just before Toronto Pride 2010, Kaplan instructed his followers to not support Kulanu or the Pride parade, referring to gays as "an abomination," says Justine Apple, executive director of Kulanu...

Ricky Veerappan, an inspector in the diversity and cultural research bureau of YRP, says police could not substantiate the allegations of hate rhetoric.

“We looked at it from a purely religious perspective,” he says. “Experts agreed that the content was technically correct. I’m in no position to judge if that’s hateful.”

...Kaplan gave his sermon after Kulanu published a full-page advertisement in the Toronto Star just before the 2010 Pride parade. “The rabbi got a hold of the ad and presented it to his synagogue members while he spoke.

“The ad was a call-out to people to come and march with us because of the whole QuAIA [Queers Against Israeli Apartheid] controversy, so we wanted community support,” she says. But Kaplan used that advertisement to blast the gay community.

Kaplan tells Xtra he stands by his comments. “I took exception to [homosexuality] and I continue to take exception to it.”

The Xtra article includes an interesting email exchange between Kaplan and the Canadian Jewish Congress' Bernie Farber.

Like Apple, Farber questions whether Kaplan is the most appropriate choice to represent YRP. "That's what has to be answered."

"It's not enough to say, 'It's in the Bible and that makes it OK,' even if that may be true," Farber says. "Does it make it right to take it one step further and take that position as a public official? That's a serious question that deserves a thoughtful answer, and we have not heard that yet."

Veerappan says the police investigation concluded in January with the decision that Kaplan would remain a police chaplain.

The terror group Hamas, which seized control of Gaza in 2007 and has enablers in the West, has rejected rival group Fatah's calls for municipal elections this coming July, according to a report in Saudi Arabia's Arab News.

MONTREAL - Maxime Bernier said what many Quebecers who speak French or English know to be right. Everyone in Quebec should learn to speak French and be able to use it in everyday life. But the world is too small for ambitious Quebecers to be able to live their lives entirely in French, and it impoverishes Quebec to deprive them of the chance to learn English.

The parts of Bill 101 that regulate the display of commercial messages in English and thatregulate the use of languages on commercial Internet sites are small-minded, vindictive and foolish.